As Heidi Klum would say...

auf wiedersehen, blogger. It was nice to have known you and I'm glad you came out of beta and gave me some features that I would have liked to have earlier, but - as they say - it was too little, too late.

Now that I'm just an old married guy with a possibly permanent URL at www.scott-n-katie.com, we're going to transform that space (from it's current "wedding" state) into a place for news/blogs/pictures for our new family. I could technically still use blogger to post there, but I've been dying to try WordPress, and after getting it installed on our webspace, it looks very promising.

I don't really have a timeline for when the new version of our Scott and Katie site will be done, but there might be a dearth of blog posts between now and then. Sorry, folks! Thems the breaks.

New stuff

New stuff all around.

About 3 weeks ago, we adopted a cat named Princess.

Princess Dai

About 2 weeks ago, I purchased a Nintendo Wii.


A few days ago, I added that new "Enjoyable Diversions" sidebar to my blog, which automagically updates through the wonder of Google Reader. I collapsed my long list of archive links into a drop-down menu, to save room on the page.

So, even when I'm too lazy to update, you can continue to see what interesting blog posts I'm reading.

On Voting

I know I owe y'all a long entry on China and how it went with pictures, and I promise that it's coming (most of the pictures are on my computer now, so all I need to do is sit down and write a bit about our trip), but I thought I'd just put this up while it's fresh in my mind.

I went to vote this morning. I vote in district 12 at the:

CALVARY EPISCOPAL CHURCH PARISH HALL

315 SHADY AVE

PITTSBURGH , PA

according to the PA election website. I voted on an ES&S iVotronic, which although it isn't a media-blasted Diebold machine, still has no verifiable paper trail.

While my vote went fine (as far as I could see, anyway), I heard two volunteer election people talking about the eVoting machines, discussing battery packs. I distinctly heard, "I think we should leave them all plugged in for now," which is hardly confidence inspiring. Then again, maybe I'm just paranoid from having read too many Ars Technica article about voting machine deficiencies before this election.

Does anyone want to watch returns tonight? Maybe the Stewart/Colbert take on it? 'Cause I don't get Comedy Central. So, invite me over.

Ni hao

Greetings from Beijing, where we are up early and ready to take a flight to Xian (home of those famous terra cotta warriors).

We've been busy these past two days, visiting such sites as the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace, Tiananmen Square, the Ming Tombs, and various small shopping outlets. It's been super fun, and our hotel room comes with a computer connected to a medium-speed internet line, so I figured I would post before we left this hotel in case we weren't as lucky at the next place.

Our tour group is kind of ridiculous, partially because it contains several people who don't seem to like Chinese food or appreciate any aspects of the Chinese culture, and a bunch of people who ask inane questions and are generally annoying.

We've taken lots of pictures and will certainly get around to posting those at some point. We even have some pictures of the most annoying person in our tour group (Cowboy Bob!), as well as - you know - the actual attractions.

More later - I have to go take a shower.

Idle

A small group of us went to see Spamalot at the Benedum last night, and while my expectations were low, the show certainly didn't blow me away. It simply cleared the low expectation bar. Parts were funny, but I found myself cringing more than I wished and often wondering how it had managed to capture the Tony.

Then again, Crash won last year's Oscar, so I suppose we shouldn't put too much faith in award-giving organizations.

With less than a week before we hop a slow boat to China, this week feels unexpectedly long. Speaking of which...does anyone want to drive us to the airport Sunday morning? Really early Sunday morning? Our flight is at around 8 AM and it's international, so we're probably supposed to get there even earlier.

I guess I should head home soon. I can't concentrate.

Anyone want to buy a toaster?

We helped Brian move on Saturday into his new house. It's a rambling little bungalow in the Jewish part of town, but the best part of his house (the best part of any house, really) is his two little Asian neighbors, who would scream with delight at the slightest thing.

I also bought a board/card game called Collosal Arena and we played it. I went into Games Unlimited actually looking for a game called Intrige, but - alas! - they did not seem to have it in stock. Collosal Arena isn't a huge-boxed game, and it plays fairly quickly with 5 people, which makes me think that with less players, it would really shine. I approve.

Katie and I tried to clean up/organize our junk that's spread all around the apartment yesterday with little to moderate success. We're also trying to eat healthier and shed some pounds with little to moderate success.

We leave for China in a little under two weeks. Quack quack!

What mii worry?

The Wii details finally dropped yesterday: $250, Nov. 19 release, and there will be one controller + nunchuck in the box, along with a copy of Wii Sports. There's a slick little Channels interface that was shown, which would essentially duplicate a lot of the things that my MythTV box can currently do, but it looks a bit more Web2.0-y. The verdict? Well, it hasn't changed. I'm probably going to grab one at or very close to launch.

It's unfair that Boston Alex gets to have kittens. I disapprove, unless she gives one to us. I acquired the first season of Arrested Development on DVD this past week. We might get to see Therese the Geese this weekend. I'm getting multiple super secret phone calls. And Survivor started last night.

So life is good. I should really try to stick to my workout schedule more, though. My new goal is to lose 10 pounds by the new year!